What if you zeroed out?

st_james92
st_james92 Posts: 6
in Fitness and Exercise
This is something that occurred to me earlier today and after trying to look it up I couldn't find out anything so here is my question.

What if the calories you consumed for the entire day and the exercise you did equaled zero? What would be the result over the long term?Would your body enter starvation mode? Is the original poster crazy and needs to stop thinking and exercise more?(the answer to that last one is yes) But in all seriousness I was wondering if we could pull together people who might know something more then I do?

Now I myself am not doing this and I post this as a disclaimer. I was just curious as to what knowledge on the subject you beautiful people might have.

Replies

  • AllonsYtotheTardis
    AllonsYtotheTardis Posts: 16,947 Member
    it wouldn't be good for your body.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    That's essentially called exercise anorexia.
  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
    On long ski days I've had net calories go negative. Zombie mode (low blood sugar) for the next couple of days. Learned to eat back a significant % of calories on the big burns.

    Long term effect (once my legs stopped being sore) was to lose roughly the extra amount of weight I would have expected based on the extra calorie deficit.

    Didn't notice any other side effects.
  • ckpoem
    ckpoem Posts: 6 Member
    Hitting the slopes tomorrow. I often eat high calories during skiing days because of the huge calorie expenditure. It includes apres-ski beer!
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
    In the past I've very occasionally done it.

    It's just eating at a pretty extreme deficit. Probably a bit better than not eating at all, but not going to be a sustainable solution for positive results, of course.

    Saying that, there have been cases of some extremely obese people living off water and vitamin pills for extended periods I think - in those cases they do have significant fat reserves to be released, of course.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    Just how healthy does a long term, net zero intake sound?
  • st_james92
    st_james92 Posts: 6
    Not to healthy but I have heard worse....cotton ball diet anyone?
  • Rien5
    Rien5 Posts: 51 Member
    sounds like exercise anorexia (It's usually called exercise bulimia but bulimia usually involves eating more and then purging). Not something you'd ever want to do.
  • KristiRTT
    KristiRTT Posts: 346 Member
    Ideally you want your TDEE and your calories consumed to be equal, not you calories burned during exercise! Let me explain a little better, I am a small frame 5'8" woman who works a job where I walk at least 5 miles a day. My TDEE without any extra exercise is around 2200 calories. I am also training for a marathon, so I am running a lot! A typical long run day I can burn over 1,000 extra calories! So the total TDEE for that day could be over 3,000. Now to ensure I am still losing some weight, I want to eat less than that, typically 10-20% less.

    Just realize the goal MFP gives you is no where near your TDEE, this goal already has a deficit calculated for you. Any exercise should be added into your daily calories. To ensure a healthy lifestyle, please try to eat an appropriate amount of calories for your activity levels. However one or 2 days with negative calorie consumption will not permanently harm you!

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